


Cat and Mouse

by WordCollector



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Blood, Drowning, Gen, Memory Loss, PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-04-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6478075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordCollector/pseuds/WordCollector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everywhere Bucky turns Black Panther is there.</p><p>or,</p><p>Bucky has a very bad week</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat and Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilerish for the new movie, Captain America Civil War, even though I haven't seen it. This is inspired by the trailers.

He wasn’t sure what happened, at first. 

Shoving the peeling apartment door closed, Bucky trudged into the cramped room shedding his heavy coat. The moon was shimmering on the pitch black river outside his drafty window. After slapping together something to eat, he settled back on the tattered couch, three peanut-butter sandwiches in hand. 

New developments in yesterday’s U.N explosion preempted the Tonight Show’s monologue. He took a long pull of his beer, then set the bottle by his feet. When he looked up, the show had come back on. A comedian had the host in tears. Jamming his hand down into the cushions, Bucky fished out the remote and turned the volume up. He propped his booted feet onto the worn coffee table and relaxed back. He was shoving the second bite of sandwich into his mouth when the window shattered. 

A masked man dressed in black was on him. Tackling him from behind, shoving him down. The coffee table smashed under their weight. Bucky twisted away, kicking out, took a hard scratch to the shin. It tore straight through thick boot leather, and cut into flesh beneath. Heart racing, he knew he needed to run. The man grabbed him by the leg, yanked him forward. Flat on his back, Bucky kicked out, caught the man in the chest. Sent the masked man sprawling. Flipping over, Bucky ran for the door. 

Scrambling down the stairs and out the side door, Bucky raced towards his car. The shadowy figure jumped down. Landing practically on top of Bucky. Grabbed Bucky by the arm, and threw him face first into the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Scraped his cheek on the hard stucco. The masked man wrenched Bucky’s right arm up behind his back, twisted, shoving.

Training allowed Bucky to worm out, use his flexible left arm to grab over his shoulder. He clawed at anything he could reach on the man behind him. Finally, he grabbed the back of the man’s head. Pulling hard and fast, he lifted the man up, nearly dislocating his own right shoulder in the process. The man didn’t release the pinned arm, but Bucky shifted him just enough. A slight change of position, and Bucky released, used a hard metal elbow hit the man in the ribs. 

The masked man was strong, but he lost his grip when Bucky struck. Provided Bucky with enough space to drop, slip down to his knees and kick out. Trip the guy, and scramble away. Bucky glanced back and the man in black was already getting up. Bucky’s car was too far away, he would never make it. 

Making a quick decision, Bucky turned towards the bridge. Leapt into the icy wide river. Let his own weight carry him down, as the fast current carried him along. Waited till he reached the point where his chest hurt. Finally, he panicked, needing air. In the pitch black, he couldn’t tell which way was up. He kicked out, almost at the point where if he didn’t surface soon, he would try to breathe anyways. Suck in water. 

Finally, he saw light to his right, swam towards it. Hit the surface and gasped. Pushed the long hair from his face. Tried to remain silent, choke down the instinct to cough. He was at least a mile downriver. The bridge had disappeared around the bend. 

Kicking, he swam towards the bank. His right shoulder was screaming with every stroke through the water. He put it out of his mind, hurrying, pushing. Knowing the man in black would not take long to get here. 

Crawling out onto the bank, he wanted to take a minute to figure out what was going on. He wanted to flop onto his back and lie there. He wanted to just breathe. 

Instinct wouldn’t let him. It drove him out of the river, stumbling as the thick silt sucked his boots. Scrambling forward on hands and knees, fear pushed him on. He clambered up the steep muddy bank. Reached the dense trees and used them to propel himself up, lumbered onto the roadside shivering and dripping. Running to the closest parked car, he wrenched open the door. Remembered at the last minute to keep the door intact, not mangled. In seconds he had it started and headed down the road. Merged into traffic while still fumbling the knobs. Turning the heat up to high with stiff frozen fingers. 

During the next few hours, he switched cars twice. Retreated to a distant city and found an abandoned warehouse to lick his wounds.

His shoulder throbbed, his wrist was sprained and his shin luckily only had two deep gashes. The boots had four. 

His shin hurt in a way that meant the scratch went through to the bone. Most likely there was a scratch in the bone. He shivered while he bandaged it. The bleeding had stopped, but the leg should be in a cast. Bucky hopped around the warehouse, looking for something, anything useful. It was picked clean. All he found was an old torn t-shirt, and some broken bottles. 

His clothes were still damp, but he wouldn’t take them off. He couldn’t be certain he was safe. He tore the discarded shirt into strips, wrapped them around the shredded upper boot. The laces had been snapped into at least a dozen wet tiny pieces, and he was too tired and shaky to mess with them. He needed to keep his boots on, even with damp socks. Survival took priority over damp feet. Luckily, he knew super soldiers didn’t get trench foot. 

When he finally settled, back propped in a dark corner, his stomach growled. He shivered again as he tried to go over what had happened. He had no idea who the man in black was, or what he wanted. Bucky didn’t think the guy was Hydra, but he wasn’t certain.

He tried to ignore the hunger gnawing at his gut. It had been hours since he had anything but a couple of mouthfuls of sandwich. Staring into the darkness, exhaustion finally won and he fell asleep. 

Bucky lost his backpack in the attack. Abandoned it along with his meager supper. It pained him afterward, made it hard to breathe when he woke and realized it was gone. 

He spent the days after it’s loss, torn between the need for safety, and the need to recreate the journals inside. He was afraid he might have already forgotten pieces. Might not ever be able to get them back. 

He remembers what it was like not to know who he was. Steve Rogers told him his name. It was a meaningless word. Then suddenly, it wasn’t. 

A few days later, he was holed up in a foreclosed house. A rural neighborhood was risky, but the house was secluded. Walking down a dark hall towards the bedroom, he saw his assailant just long enough to think ‘Are those cat ears?’ before getting thrown to the ground. 

Moving in, the attacker grabbed his arm. Bucky’s cheap sweatshirt split at the seam. Leaving the attacker with nothing but sleeve, and sending Bucky into an ungraceful sprawl. The cat-man was dressed in black from head to toe, and Bucky saw his sharp claws raised for a strike. As fast as his assailant moved in, Bucky scrambled away. 

Dashing into the bedroom, Bucky snatched his new backpack, then flung himself through a window. Landed in a shower of glass, and quickly disappeared into the streets.

When he was safely out of town, he took stock again. His right shoulder was still sore, and his leg hadn’t been happy to suffer more abuse. It was definitely worse. Plus now he had broken his right thumb in the escape. It would splint easily enough. Wasn’t more than a nuisance while driving. 

He settled into the back of his minivan with a loaf of bread, to eat and write. Recreating the lost journals with every break. Suddenly the broken thumb was a much bigger deal. He couldn’t hold a pen correctly, and his writing was almost illegible. He tried writing with his left hand. 

It was actually not bad. The penmanship was surprisingly legible. The metal fingers were distracting. Made him focus on memories he would rather not have. He kept separate sets of journals. Sorting the memories, good from bad. Writing with the metal hand filled up the bad journals, left him nauseous after a few hours writing. That night he had nightmares. The Pandora’s box, once unlocked letting out a torrent of memories. One after the next, an unending train of horror, and gore. He woke frozen, trapped in a swirl of memory he didn’t want, and couldn’t get out of. 

After a shaky start, he drove more than wrote that next day. Afraid to put a pen to paper. Fear of what the metal hand would dredge up next. That evening, he sat in the back of the minivan and strapped the pen onto his flesh fingers. Tied it to the splint on his thumb. The writing was atrocious, but legible if he printed in all capitals. 

It was slower writing this way, but he was able to get back to rewriting the journals he lost.

A sudden silence outside of the minivan almost made him cry. He gripped the notebook, carefully slid it into the backpack. Quietly slipped the backpack on, then slowly slid towards the driver seat. He didn’t get in the seat, just leaned towards the ignition. Started the car from the floor next to it, with his left leg wedged up, onto the gas. As soon as the car started, he put it into gear and floored it. Popped up into the drivers seat in time to hear a thump from the roof. 

He ducked down as sharp, claw tipped fingers pushed through the metal as it gripped the roof over the rear-view mirror. They pierced slowly, not tearing and loosing their grip. Holding on. The other hand was carving a strip of the roof away. The hole in the roof was getting wider, he could see a patch of the night sky, and the intricate lines and patterns in the jet black armor on his attacker. The man lie inches away from Bucky’s head. In seconds he would be through the roof. 

Bucky stomped on the brake. The cat man lost his grip, flung onto the grassy verge. Hitting the gas, Bucky flew past the man in black as he rolled, getting back to his feet. The attacker jumped up into a dead sprint.

The man was fast, reaching out and grabbing the bumper. Yanking it off, and jumping over it. Never missing a step. Bucky swerved into an intersection, his tires lost their grip and the minivan fishtailed for a second. Bucky’s taillight hit the cat man with a thump and he disappeared. The minivan regained it’s traction and Bucky sped away, eyes glued to the rear-view mirrors. 

When he stopped to rest, he couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep, and he couldn’t write. Just stared at the backpack, unsure which journal to open. Replaying the two seconds where his car hit the guy in black. He had no excuses now. Hydra didn’t make him kill that guy. This blood was on his hands.

Bucky didn’t want to hurt anyone any more. 

Steve finally caught up with him at almost the same time as War Machine and the unhurt cat man. Bucky knew it was over. 

When Steve told him to stop fighting, Bucky listened. He didn’t resist while they locked him up.

Took him away.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over on Tumblr too, as stickypostbasement and I post mostly Cap and Avengers stuff. Feel free to come say Hi. 
> 
> Please leave Kudos if you liked it. Thanks!


End file.
